Reviews from When Saturday Comes. Follow the link to buy the book from Amazon.
The Success Story of Major League Soccer
by Beau Dure
Potomac, £22.00
Reviewed by David Wangerin
From WSC 285 November 2010
It may not be saying that much, but Major League Soccer – now approaching the end of its 15th season – is the longest running coast-to-coast soccer league North America has ever had. And, as Beau Dure writes at the end of this book: "Whether MLS has ‘arrived' is a moot point. It's here. And it's healthy."
The Robbie Savage Autobiography
by Robbie Savage with Janine Self
Mainstream, £17.99
Reviewed by Joyce Woolridge
From WSC 286 December 2010
"I have probably watched every adult movie ever made. There's not a lot else to do on Wales duty!… It was the only way to while away a little time when intense boredom set in." Beetroot can turn your pee red. Robbie Savage didn't need to shave until he was 22. He has a big hooter. Steve Claridge is one of the best dancers he has ever seen. At Leicester his team-mates labelled his sillier comments ("What train did the Krays rob?") "the Savisms" and here rattlepate Robbie quite entertainingly reveals every inconsequential detail in his own distinctive style.
The Autobiography of the First Black Icon of British Football
by Cyrille Regis
Andre Deutsch, £18.99
Reviewed by Neville Hadsley
From WSC 288 February 2011
Football autobiographies are often a bit of a tease, promising to let fans of particular clubs behind the scenes, in exchange for a wad of cash. This effort from Cyrille Regis, ghost-written by Chris Green, attempts to confound that cliche and reach instead for redemption.
George Best at Hibs
by John Neil Munro
Birlinn, £9.99
Reviewed by Graham McColl
From WSC 289 March 2011
Scottish club football began the 1970s in the cigar-toting strata of European football, but by the end of the decade it was doing the equivalent of rummaging around looking for fag-ends. Hibernian, whose hugely progressive Turnbull's Tornadoes side had jousted with the likes of Sporting Lisbon and Liverpool early that decade, were chief among the Scottish game's derelicts by the closing weeks of 1979. The Edinburgh club was in an abject state and heading for relegation.
44 Months with a Pair of Cowboys
by Brian Reade
Quercus, £12.99
Reviewed by Rob Hughes
From WSC 292 June 2011
As you might surmise from the title, Brian Reade's account of Tom Hicks' and George Gillett's turbulent time at Liverpool doesn't exactly propose to be a balanced one. But this book proves to be much more than it suggests. Not that the American pair, who took over in a leveraged buyout in February 2007, escape without the bashing they deserve.